Western civilization is crumbling. Some people even think the demise of all things white and European is a good thing.

Ironically, the people who think so tend to be the same people who think sanctuary cities and open borders are great, and “painting immigrants with a broad brush” is not. These are the people who think of themselves as “pro-immigrant,” but they couldn’t be more wrong. Group identity, open borders, and sanctuary cities are “pro-immigrant” only in the world of fantasy moral high ground.

Those of us who think individualism is great and sanctuary cities and open borders are not tend to be the same people who think the demise of Western culture is a terrible thing. We are the ones called “anti-immigrant,” but that couldn’t be further from the truth. We’re the ones who are actually saving immigrant lives. And we’re doing it with Western values like individualism and the rule of law.

What’s Wrong with Sanctuary Cities

The idea that sanctuary cities protect immigrants is just stupid. Legal and illegal immigrants alike are at more risk in sanctuary cities because they attract criminal illegal aliens who prey on them—a fact attested to by Juan Francisco López-Sánchez, the criminal illegal alien who killed San Francisco resident Kate Steinle. López-Sánchez was only in San Francisco because it was a sanctuary city. He said so himself (43:49).

The specious argument for sanctuary cities is that poor, innocent immigrants are at the mercy of criminal aliens because they’re so afraid of deportation, they won’t report the crimes to law enforcement. If deportation were the worst thing that could happen to illegal aliens, the argument would hold water. But it isn’t. The worst thing that can happen to them—and criminal aliens well know this—is to have themselves victimized or family back home threatened or killed.

So what if a sanctuary city makes it easier for illegal aliens to report a local crime to law enforcement? They aren’t about to report threats to their families back home because A) there’s nothing local law enforcement can do and B) it puts their families in more danger. Since sanctuary cities attract criminal illegal aliens, the immigrants in those cities are statistically more likely to be victims of crimes they can do nothing about.

Five days after he took office, as is his constitutional prerogative, “anti-immigrant” President Trump issued an executive order denying certain federal funds to sanctuary jurisdictions that willfully refuse to cooperate with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE). Immediately, the “pro-immigrant” County of Santa Clara and the “pro-immigrant” City and County of San Francisco challenged the order. Not surprisingly, the “pro-immigrant” entities prevailed with an unelected judge of the Northern District of California who issued a nationwide injunction.

“Anti-immigrant” President Trump and his “anti-immigrant” Attorney General Jeff Sessions haven’t given up, but how many more immigrants are at the mercy of how many more criminal aliens because of “pro-immigrant” forces?

Border Enforcement Is Good for Immigrants

“Pro-immigrant” groups definitely don’t want a wall on our Southern border, and most of them would probably be happy if we cut way back on border enforcement. “Anti-immigrant” groups decidedly want a wall and believe it is our sovereign right to control our borders, a Western value if ever there was one. With which group are illegal aliens better off?

Every year the U.S. Border Patrol publishes data on number of apprehensions at the southwest border and number of border deaths. For fiscal years 2016 and 2015, apprehensions were 408,870 and 331,333, respectively; border deaths were 322 and 257 for the same years. That’s about one death for every 1,300 people apprehended at the border.

Since Trump has been in office, support for border enforcement is way up and illegal border crossings are way down. When Department of Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly appeared before the Senate Homeland Security Committee in April, he testified that March of this year was the fifth straight month of decreased border apprehensions.

In December 2016, there were 58,478 apprehensions; in March there were fewer than 17,000. That is a decrease of 71 percent, or 41,478 people. If the average of one death for every 1,300 apprehensions continues, that’s more than 30 people who are still alive today. That would be a win for the “anti-immigrant” position.

Gangs Like MS-13 Hurt Immigrants, Too

MS-13 is a ruthless gang of Salvadoran young men—most of them here illegally—that is rapidly proliferating throughout the nation. They specialize in torture, cutting off body parts, satanic rituals, murdering innocent relatives, and gruesome killing just for the fun of it. Four MS-13 gang members were arrested recently on Long Island, New York for the murders of four young Latino men.

The implicit message here is that immigrants are one big group and to criminalize a few of them criminalizes all of them, which is utterly ridiculous, but it sounds good. “Don’t paint all immigrants with the same broad brush” sounds like respect for individuality, but if that were the case, “pro-immigrant” groups would work with “anti-immigrant” groups to identify individual criminal aliens who are dangerous and eject them from society.

Instead, “pro-immigrant” groups protest the crackdown on MS-13 because it adversely (they claim) affects the reputation of the immigrant community as a whole. In other words, it’s okay if immigrants are tortured and gruesomely killed as long as “pro-immigrant” groups don’t cooperate with “anti-immigrant” groups to protect immigrant lives. Let’s ask Long Islanders what they would prefer.

Would you rather “anti-immigrant” groups paint you with a broad brush of criminality if it means your children are safer? Or would you rather “pro-immigrant” groups defend you from the scurrilous broad brush of criminality, but MS-13 only grows stronger in your community? If “pro-immigrant” groups were really pro-immigrant, they wouldn’t need to ask.